Letters: The positive case for daycare

Major mistake

Sir: Douglas Murray (‘Our poor deluded MPs’, 1 April) contends that John Major is widely regarded as ‘one of the worst prime ministers in living memory’. If so, that seems unfair. Although a greyish figure, Major had to operate with a narrow parliamentary majority and a fractious party. It is often forgotten that he was instrumental in establishing the foundations of peace in Northern Ireland, for which Tony Blair is perhaps given too much credit. Moreover, it is difficult to name any of Major’s successors who didn’t leave No. 10 without black marks on their record. Ranking PMs is something for history.

Clive Thursby
Hindhead, Surrey

Mother knows best

Sir: It is almost unheard of for me to disagree with Rod Liddle, but I take issue with his argument (‘Childcare: an inconvenient truth’, 25 March) that ‘daycare is not terribly good for children’ and that women who do send their children to it feel ‘horribly torn’ by the pressure to be both career women and full-time mothers. While I don’t doubt there are many ‘progressives’ who see childcare as the means to gender parity, as a mother of two who has recently lost her job, my main concern about finding another one is not to continue to climb the career ladder, but to be able to afford the fees for my two-year-old son who thrives at the local nursery three days a week.

With pleasure, I watch him walking in without giving me so much as a goodbye glance. Motherhood without staff is relentless and exhausting and I am a much better mother to my son with his being away from me a few days a week – possibly even a nicer person, as my husband asserts.

Sophie Law
Lower Heyford, Oxfordshire